UGA ag school plans layoffs, land sale in Oconee

The University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences will lay off 18 workers in a budgetary move, Dean Scott Angle said today.

The university also plans to sell a 522-acre agricultural research farm in Oconee County to help pay maintenance costs elsewhere, Angle said.

The layoffs are the last of about 355 jobs the agriculture college eliminated over the past three years as state lawmakers repeatedly cut UGA budgets. But this is the first time Angle actually had to order layoffs, he said.

Until now, administrators had been able to reduce the workforce by offering early retirement incentives to faculty and staff, eliminating positions as workers left for other jobs or retired, and shifting some workers from the state budget to grant budgets.

Those strategies are no longer enough, Angle said.

“There’s no one left to retire,” he said. “We just can’t get over the finish line protecting everyone’s job.”

The people losing their jobs are staff workers, not faculty members, he said.

UGA President Michael Adams told administrators to avoid laying off faculty and when possible to lay off the most recently hired employees — the so-called last-in, first-out principle.

Though Angle announced both the layoffs and the upcoming property sale today, the actions result from separate budgetary problems, he said.

The college and the university have shed hundreds of jobs since 2009 because of state budget cuts over the past three years. But money from the farm sale will help relieve a maintenance and improvement backlog that was building up years before the continuing economic downturn prompted lawmakers to repeatedly slash state appropriations as tax collections fell.

“We’re the No. 4 College of Agriculture in the country, but our infrastructure does not reflect that,” he said. “Our infrastructure is an embarrassment.”

The University System Board of Regents owns about 17,800 acres that are managed by the agriculture college, mainly for research purposes. The downsized college doesn’t need that much land any more — but does need the money the 522 acres in Oconee County might fetch so it can bring its aging agricultural facilities up to date, Angle said.

The property went up for sale today. Bidders have until 2 p.m. June 27 to make an offer on the land — a prime development tract just across the road from North Oconee High School along Snows Mill Road, Cole Spring Road and Georgia Highway 53.

Angle would not say how much UGA expects to get for the land. But if the best offer isn’t enough, the state may just hold on to the land and wait for the market to go back up, he said.

University officials will also ask the seller to lease the property back to UGA for three years while researchers finish up ongoing experiments, according to bid specifications posted on the Georgia Procurement Registry website.

The 355 jobs lost over the past three years hurt a lot more than the loss of the acreage, Angle said.

A few years ago, many counties had three or four extension agents — people who organized 4-H clubs or helped residents with gardening, agriculture, nutrition and other everyday needs. They are often the most valuable public service workers in a county, especially in rural counties, Angle said. But now, many counties have no extension agents.

The college has also lost jobs in research and other areas.

“We believe we’ve jeopardized our ability to fulfill our mission, which is to serve the state’s agricultural industry,” he said.

“We understand the public wants smaller government, and we have tried to do our part,” he said. “Our gut feeling, and what our stakeholders are telling us, is that we have cut too far. But that will be for another legislative session to see whether it’s true or not.”

The agriculture college has lost more than $22 million in state funding since 2009, about 26 percent of its budget.

That’s about the same percent as legislators have reduced appropriations to the entire University System of Georgia, but unlike many other units at UGA and the university system, the agriculture college could not raise tuition to make up for the reduced state appropriations, Angle said.

A big part of the college’s budget goes to the statewide Cooperative Extension and to agricultural research.